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Comment by gernb | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't work on Wikipedia. They specifically don't take "primary sources". They only take secondary sources. If Obama was to try to edit his own article to correct some facts he knows are true they'd delete his edits immediately unless he can point to a secondary source that backs up his facts.

This is especially frustrating because often the secondary sources are from journalists who got the story wrong, made up "facts", incorrectly reported something, or just didn't understand the topic. But, because there words on are on some website they're taken as the authority.

I get it's a hard problem. The primary source could have reasons to lie. I've just seen too many cases where I've seen the secondary source was wrong either being the primary source or being at the primary source.

But, it's only going to get worse as A.I can start making up its own secondary sources and then link to them in a few weeks/months to edit wikipedia.

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I tried correcting the origins of the first prototype of the Docker software on Wikipedia. The people I worked with at the time can confirm the story of course. But Wikipedia will not take our words as we are the literal primary sources. Instead they want secondary accounting. Which happens to be whatever was shared to journalist years later by people that weren't there initially or didn't design and write the code.

This is annoying at a personal level (resumé looks better with a wikipedia mention). It did opene my eyes on how history recounting really works though.

Sneak an interview into lwn.net with all the details you need, then you got your secondary source.

[One coping mechanism is double-checking to see if a primary source really does say what a secondary source claims.]

> Doesn't work on Wikipedia.

Sure it does.

> They specifically don't take "primary sources".

A primary source is not an acceptable direct source of an article, but a comparison of the cited secondary source to the primary sources it cites would be a legitimate grounds for challenging the use of the secondary source. That's kind of central to verifiability.

> If Obama was to try to edit his own article to correct some facts he knows are true they'd delete his edits immediately

That's true, but a different thing: editing based on personal knowledge without referencing a source isn't “using a primary source”, its trying to make Wikipedia itself a primary source (what WP calls “original research”.)

OTOH, Wikipedia isn't the only Wikimedia project, several of the other ones can be secondary or primary sources (Wikinews, Wikibooks, and Wikiversity, notably.)

> I get it's a hard problem. The primary source could have reasons to lie. I've just seen too many cases where I've seen the secondary source was wrong either being the primary source or being at the primary source.

I've seen just as many cases where the subject of some article tried to influence it, bend it, or outright fake facts on it. Believing them could be considered worse than a bunch of secondary sources. Those are obviously not bullet-proof either, but there is more inertia to it to fake it. Like paper ballots. In theory, can be faked, but the endeavor is enormous.

You're right. It's a hard problem.

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